


Pancakes

by cosmic_llin



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 11:57:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20835080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: B'Elanna spends a quiet morning making pancakes.For raven-mcbain-monkeymouse in Trek Rarepair Swap.





	Pancakes

B’Elanna woke, and for a fraction of a moment she wasn’t sure where she was.

She was comfortable, and warm, and soft light was coming from somewhere. Nothing in particular had woken her except for her body’s signal that she’d had all the sleep she needed. She stretched, eyes still half-closed, and met resistance in both directions.

That was right. Tom was on one side of her, and Kathryn was on the other. Harry and Chakotay were on either side of them. She was in the middle, safe and cosy. Kathryn’s hand was draped over her hip, and Tom’s foot was against her calf.

By the quiet sounds around her, nobody else was awake yet.

It still stunned her, that she could have this.

It didn’t happen that often – they were all so busy that they mostly only managed to gather in twos and threes, passing on hugs, kisses, touches from each other like promises. But once in a while the five of them coordinated their time to spend a few precious days here, at the secluded cabin B’Elanna thought of as home.

For a few minutes she just lay there, gradually coming to full wakefulness. Now that she was listening, she could make out the different sounds of the others sleeping. Chakotay snored softly – she remembered that from way back in the Maquis, when sometimes they’d shared quarters if there wasn’t space. Kathryn was a light sleeper, moving around a lot, waking often at small noises and movements. She could still never quite leave being the captain behind. She talked sometimes, too. As B’Elanna lay there she shuffled onto her front and murmured: ‘warp seven… activate the rocks…'

Tom breathed deeply, slowly, especially when they all slept together. Harry slept mostly silently, but occasionally he’d make a little high-pitched whimper before settling back down.

Back when they’d started all sleeping like this, the sounds had kept B’Elanna up all night. Now they soothed her, reassured her. They were all there, and they weren’t going anywhere.

She and Chakotay had built this bed together, big enough for all of them at once, with all the things they liked. A headboard for Kathryn, luxuriously soft pillows for Harry, a firm mattress for Tom. It was one of B’Elanna’s favourite things in the entire galaxy. Every time she lay in it she thought of how happy she and Chakotay had been that week, how the bed had taken shape slowly as they got into the rhythm of working together, how they’d settled a little more into their own particular corner of this relationship.

* * *

_‘Hand me that saw, would you?’ Chakotay says, and their hands brush as she does it._

_This is much more his area of expertise than hers, this making something real and solid and permanent. Over their years in the Maquis and on Voyager she learned to make the best of very little, engines cobbled together, fuel scraped up anywhere they could find it. She rarely had the chance to build anything._

_For this project, they have all the time and resources they need. It feels alien to B’Elanna, who’s used to motivating herself through a kind of panicked determination, always dancing on the edge of disaster. She’s not sure she could find the focus to manage something like this on her own, but Chakotay is slow and steady and shows her what to do when she’s not sure._

_And when they take breaks, he’s slow and steady too, because he knows without being told that B’Elanna needs that. _

_He’s always been able to read her. Once it scared her, made her shy and defensive, but now it’s starting to make her feel safe instead._

* * *

As comfortable as the bed was, she’d never been one for lying around for ages after waking up. After a few minutes she slipped expertly down to the foot to let herself free, and shrugged on Chakotay’s robe over her pyjamas, since it was the closest. She put on Harry’s slippers, because they were so warm and soft, and headed down to the kitchen.

Sunlight streamed through the windows, and B’Elanna thought she’d make pancakes.

She started the coffee and then made up the pancake batter while it brewed. She wasn’t much of a cook and there was a replicator, if she’d wanted to use it, but time seemed to move so slowly here that she never felt in a rush. She could take her time and make pancakes by hand, in this bubble of theirs.

She was heating the pan when Kathryn wandered in, barefoot with her hair down. She’d been growing it out again for a while, and B’Elanna liked it.

* * *

_‘Perhaps I’ll grow my hair out again,’ Kathryn says._

_She’s always more thoughtful, more considered after sex, as though it slows her down for a moment to the pace of the rest of the universe._

_‘That would look nice,’ says B’Elanna._

_Behind her Tom snores, and his hand on her thigh shifts. He always falls asleep right after._

_‘Do you think so?’ Kathryn asks. ‘I’ve been toying with the idea, but I don’t know.’_

_‘What’s stopping you?’_

_In the half-light, she looks hesitant. ‘When I cut my hair… I don’t know, it felt like a statement, about my priorities. No time anymore for elaborate styles. No energy, either. No will.’_

_‘And growing it out again feels like another kind of statement?’ B’Elanna asks, stroking Kathryn’s arm._

_‘One I don’t know that I’m ready to make.’_

_‘If it turns out you’re not ready, you could just cut it again.’_

_They never talk about it, the way they both held despair so close for so long, but B’Elanna can feel it in the undercurrent of the conversation – not the despair itself, mostly at bay now, but the way it shaped them both, like a river tumbling rocks smooth. _

_Kathryn grins. ‘The practical approach,’ she says. ‘You’re right. Nothing to do but try.’_

* * *

‘I smelled coffee,’ Kathryn said, as though B’Elanna hadn’t guessed.

She poured herself a cup and then came over to wrap an arm around B’Elanna and kiss her cheek. ‘How did you sleep?’

‘Like a log,’ B’Elanna said. ‘Pancakes’ll be ready in a little while.’

‘I’m going to get some fresh air,’ Kathryn said.

She took her coffee out on the deck. B’Elanna swirled the batter into the pan.

Tom wandered through, wearing nothing but pyjama shorts, and went to join Kathryn outside. B’Elanna watched him go by as the first pancake took shape. She flipped it with an engineer’s precision and a smile of satisfaction.

* * *

_B’Elanna thinks about the jealousy she had to squash down, back when all this got started. The little voice that kept saying: 'If they all have each other, why would they want you?'_

_It seems more distant now, that little voice. Distant enough, anyway, that her reaction to what she’s seeing is warmth and love instead of fear and doubt. She loves seeing how tender Harry is with Tom, the way he understands, as she does, how much Tom needs gentleness. Knowing what Tom needs bonds them in a way she hasn’t ever felt before._

_‘Please…’ Tom gasps, and Harry whispers sweet things to him, and B’Elanna can’t hear what he says but suddenly Tom is watching her watching them, his breath coming faster._

_‘That’s it,’ says Harry. ‘Do it for B’Elanna.’_

_And Tom cries out, and B’Elanna feels like everything is happening as it should._

* * *

When the pancakes were almost finished, Kathryn and Tom came back in to set the table. While B'Elanna put them on the plate, Chakotay and Harry appeared together, breathless and rumpled and happy.

Half-dressed, they all sat down to eat, passing bottles of syrup, stealing bites from each other’s forks.

‘B’Elanna,’ said Kathryn, ‘these pancakes are _perfect_.’

And they were.


End file.
